


Perfect Violence

by simplesetgo



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/F, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-09
Updated: 2010-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplesetgo/pseuds/simplesetgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cara likes rain and Kahlan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect Violence

It begins with a sigh in the air, a soft breeze across her face, and as the first drop hits her cheek, Cara closes her eyes and listens. She hears light drops patter over her leather and the stonework under her feet while distant thunder rumbles—a foretelling of the coming violence. For now it is gentle and she stands straight but relaxed, savoring the smell of rain as a sudden gust of wind tugs at her hair.

When she opens her eyes, she sees the same wind bending and twisting the line of treetops across the field, and she watches waves travel across the waist-high grass. Cara appreciates a good beginning. She is familiar with storms, and from the way darker clouds are gathering to the west, hiding the early evening sun, this is the beginning of a particularly lengthy squall.

The rain begins to thicken before her, changing from a haze into defined lines and sheets. She raises her face to the light gray skies and offers her skin to the young storm. The raindrops shower her, coming faster and harder, and Cara breathes deep and parts her lips. She doesn’t stretch her jaw, doesn’t extend her tongue, she simply waits, and is soon rewarded with the sudden coldness of a single drop landing just inside her lip. She smirks slightly and lowers her face to watch the wind attack the field and trees in front of her. This is a good storm.

Rain always makes her feel clean. Every living thing under the skies is familiar with it and is subjected to it. There’s an element of equality that Cara appreciates the irony of. She flutters her eyelashes to free them of water as it gathers there, reaching a gloved hand to wipe at her eyebrows. Cara shivers—quite involuntarily—when the motion opens a path for a tickling rivulet of particularly cold rainwater to escape down her chest.

Thicker and larger drops begin to pelt at her skin and leather, and the soft roar of rain on stone grows louder and louder. It isn’t long before Cara’s hair is soaked. Her skin is receiving similar treatment—water is seeping under the collar and in between the tightly laced cracks of her armor. Her past begins to seep out as wetness works its way in, and she becomes something else as she faces her storm in an act of both submission and defiance.

Lightning flashes across the sky and Cara lets herself become something more basic, more elemental, a fundamental version of herself. She ceases to be the sum of her past, and as she flares her nostrils at the strong scent of wet earth, she just is. Cara forgets that she was thrice broken and then once more, and she forgets that she has a lifetime of suffering—caused to others, not herself—to atone for. She doesn’t forget who it is that makes her feel such obligation.

It’s storms like this one that rebuild the world. They can erase tracks in the dirt, swallowing evidence of anyone’s passing, and over time they wear down stone and rock. If one is angry enough it can tear down buildings and level aspirations of high-thinking men to the ground. Storms break things impartially. They allow the opportunity for such things to be rebuilt—maybe better, maybe worse, but different either way. Cara has long since decided that she is being rebuilt for the better.

The sky is still a light shade of gray and Cara almost frowns. The darker clouds are skirting around to the north, teasing her, and she settles for a deep sigh of disapproval. As if in answer, a low rumble sounds through the air, loud and drawn-out, and echoes off the building behind her. “I accept your apology,” she mutters.

“Cara!”

A voice, belonging to the single most powerful and perfect storm she has ever met, calls out to her back and she turns to see Kahlan leaning in the doorway, arms crossed and brow furrowed. “Come inside. It’s raining,” she points out.

Cara turns her face to the sky again, as if inspecting the accuracy of such a statement, and closes her eyes for a moment to let the rain speak to her skin. “Come here,” she calls out suddenly.

“What?”

Cara looks to see Kahlan’s brow furrowed a little deeper. She hasn’t moved. “I said come here,” Cara repeats.

“But it’s raining,” Kahlan says dumbly. “Why?”

“Because you owe me,” she replies, smirking a little. “Remember the falls at Aldermont?”

Kahlan has that delicious look on her face—the one where she can’t decide whether to smile or frown. She ends up quirking a half smile, as usual. After pulling up her dark hood she quickly steps out into the rain with head bowed and arms crossed. She nearly runs the short distance to Cara, arriving in front of her with her nose scrunched.

“Alright,” she says. “I’m here.”

Cara just looks at her for a moment, all drawn up and nearly shivering—she can’t understand how, herself being quite comfortable—and wordlessly raises a finger to twice tap her own lips.

Kahlan’s half-smile returns, then twists into something else before she leans in and gives Cara a short peck of a kiss. “Alright,” she says. “Can we go inside now?”

Cara frowns at her offer. “That’s hardly fair. I nearly died trying to give you your little romantic waterfall moment.”

“You did _not_ nearly die,” Kahlan protests, “and you know it. And I apologized at least a dozen times, and you said you forgave me.”

The cloth of Kahlan’s hood and shoulders are growing dark and wet as Cara pretends to weigh her words. Only when Kahlan raises her brow in question does Cara act, and she does so swiftly. She raises gloved hands to cup Kahlan’s neck and pulls her forward, intent on stealing a deep and passionate kiss.

She doesn’t get that far; Kahlan yelps at the contact, immediately biting out two words when Cara is a breath away from her lips. “Cold hands!”

The moment is ruined. Cara drops her arms to her sides and tries very hard to keep from looking dejected and slightly embarrassed. It doesn’t work. It never does. Kahlan always reads her like so many words on a page. Cara stares at a spot on the base of Kahlan’s neck as rainwater gathers and streams down her pale skin, and Kahlan bites down on her lip.

“I’m sorry, Cara,” she says quietly, raising her own warm hands to Cara’s cheeks. “Here,” she adds, reclosing the distance between them.

Cara tilts her head slightly to meet her, and this time the gentle press of Kahlan’s warm lips against her own has her closing her eyes in somehow-unexpected rapture. Kahlan gives her a series of quick but firm kisses before slipping a hand behind her neck and deepening her attentions.

Cara opens her mouth against Kahlan’s own, and as the rain falls around them, over them, and between them, their kiss seems more pure and more just than it has any right to be. Cara is neither of those things; such qualities belong to Kahlan alone, but she tastes them in the heat of Kahlan’s mouth as she shares them with her.

When Kahlan finally pulls away, blue eyes hooded yet sparkling, all Cara can do is swallow. “Come on,” Kahlan says, tugging on her hand. She flashes Cara a smile and Cara lets herself be led back to the doorway, suddenly feeling ashamed that she made Kahlan get herself nearly soaked.

“I’m sorry you’re wet,” she offers as they step inside and out of the rain.

Kahlan just smirks as she lowers her hood and runs swift hands through her dark hair, finishing with a quick shake of her head to let it loose around her shoulders. “You were plenty wet when I pulled you out of the falls. It’s only fair, I suppose.”

Cara nods distractedly in acceptance of this. A flash of lightning steals her attention from the striking beauty of Kahlan and she turns, almost eagerly, and steps back to lean her shoulder on the doorway. Kahlan joins her to her side. “Can I watch with you?” she asks.

Cara peers out at the sky. It’s growing darker and the wind more powerful, and a crack of thunder steals the reply from her lips. She might get her violence after all.


End file.
